Roblox is a game that rings different bells for different people. For teens and young adults, it triggers nostalgia and memories of when they were kids. For younger children, it’s a place to connect with friends, have fun and pass time after school. Its many games offer a rollercoaster of different experiences for everyone to enjoy. Although most people seem to adore the giant mobile playground, can playing the game lead to harm for its younger users?
Like all social media, Roblox is not exempt from danger. Predators pose a threat on any app, but Roblox is the last place most would think to look. With its strict rules and regulations about what you can say and do on the app, there aren’t many ways that predators can manipulate it, right?
Although the game uses hashtags to blur out inappropriate phrases, there are many ways people can skate around this. Many predators use acronyms for things they mean to say, like the acronym “ERP,” which stands for “erotic role play.” This goes unnoticed by the many moderators and AI systems that are supposed to catch inappropriate phrases.
In 2020, a game developer and user by the name of DoctorRofatnik rose to great popularity, and quickly after fell under scrutiny. He developed the game Sonic Eclipse, a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame for Roblox. The game garnered thousands of players and even with a Discord server dedicated to its fans. This server was a place for fans of the game to come together, even having the developer himself there to make conversation as well.
Many young players wanted the chance to talk to him and even work with him, with Olivia Carville and Cecilia D’Anastasio from Bloomberg claiming, “Fans sparred with one another to get on his good side—and on his payroll.”
Many of his fans changed their minds, though, when they uncovered screenshots of him sending sexually explicit things to a minor. He even went as far as to message a 12-year-old girl, “Words cannot explain what I want to do with you.” This is just one example of a message that could easily slip through the cracks of the thousands moderators see every day.
Though the police couldn’t do much in that very moment because of his anonymity, they were sure to catch him the second time around, when he was caught for transporting and having intercourse with a minor. He had been flirting with her over Roblox and even exchanged phone numbers with her.
DoctorRofatnik is just one of the more popular cases of predators caught through the app. Many of these predators are exposed to the public through self proclaimed “predator catchers” on YouTube. These Youtubers create popular content about seemingly normal Roblox profiles that are hiding more sinister intentions.
Schlep, one of the many popular Roblox predator catchers, recently received a cease and desist from Roblox after uncovering more predators on the app. He had been sent numerous screenshots of accounts contacting minors, and even with usernames such as “PeduoRayPpvist,” Nate Eaton wrote for KSL. Schlep also found that these accounts were asking for sexually explicit photos of these children in exchange for Robux, the in-game currency of Roblox.
Many are blaming Schlep’s ban, and the lack of child safety on CEO David Baszucki and his team, which includes Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman. A post on TikTok by Change.org restated what the CEO and CSO have said about child safety on the platform, which was that “child-safety enforcement should be led by experts, AI and law enforcement.”
This put a lot of Roblox users off of the games, while people question if AI is enough to stop inappropriate messages from child predators. This is exceedingly worrying considering that it was not enough to stop predators in the past, just like DoctorRofatnik.
Not only is Baszucki under scrutiny for brushing aside the threat of predators on the app, but also for starting conversations around adding a dating feature to the app amid this current controversy.
Baszucki launched the idea at the 2023 Roblox Developers Conference, but has recently talked more about it in interviews and on podcasts. Cosmopolitan’s Annabel Iwegbue reported Baszucki’s claims that the “loneliness epidemic” is the reason Roblox needs a dating feature, completely ignoring its ongoing problem of child predators.
While predators pose a threat on every social media platform, a gaming platform specifically geared towards children is one that needs the most protection from these exploiters. Without attention from the very team that created Roblox, the problem will persist until it ruins the platform as we know it. Change.org even made a petition against Baszucki, already having garnered over 283,000 signatures. Though Roblox is actively trying to shut down the fans who want criminals off the app, the problem won’t go away until they change the system that created it.
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